You are currently experiencing irregular periods, hot flashes, temporary memory or concentration outages, mood swings and irritability, anxiety attacks, weight gain and loss of libido. Your age is between 35 to 45 years. There are times when you are depressed - not suicidal, but thinking of death and how it revolves around you. Therefore, you conclude that you are suffering from perimenopause.
Whoa, hold your horses!
Before taking anything that you think would be good to alleviate your symptoms, you first have to be sure if you are in the stage before the Change. Perimenopause tests must be taken to rule out possible disorders like cancer, thyroid problems and the like.
Now before you stop reading, let me tell you that I know what you're thinking. I myself am scared of doctors. If I so much as see a nurse with a needle coming toward me, I wanted to rush out of the room, never to return again. So I know exactly how you feel. But I also know that if I don't get myself tested, I will never know what's wrong with me. I would never know what medicine - conventional or alternative - to take. You don't want to die by taking the wrong medication, right? I know I don't. So I try to endure whatever it is that they needed to do on me.
So what tests would your doctor do to determine if you are already in perimenopause?
- Pregnancy test. Being in perimenopause doesn't automatically disqualify you for child-bearing. This is done to make sure that you're not pregnant. You can do this yourself or you can have your doctor do it for you.
- Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) test. This is a simple blood test. High FSH levels may be a sign of perimenopause.
- Estradiol (or estrogen) level test. Estrogen is not only the hormone responsible for breast development and uterus growth; it is also the one regulating the monthly period. This blood test should be done on the tenth day of the menstrual cycle. Doing so on this day gives a somewhat accurate estrogen reading.
- Thyroid-stimulating hormone test. This is done to check if an irregular period is caused by a possible thyroid problem. Again, this is another blood test. Before taking this however, please inform your doctor if you were exposed to radioactivity or had an X-ray that used iodine dye within the last 4 to 6 weeks. If so, the test results might not be accurate, so you have to wait for a couple more weeks before having this test.
When you have been cleared of these, then that is the time that you and your doctor can discuss possible treatments. Have a journal or calendar of your menstrual period and the symptoms you complain about. This would be a great help in prescribing the correct medicine for you.
If you are into alternative medicine, then have no fear. Contrary to popular belief, some doctors are already open-minded and actually recommend non-conventional remedies if only to alleviate some of the pain normal medicine can't give a solution to. Researches are already being done on the correlation of estrogen production to certain types of herbs - this goes to show that the medical community is slowly opening up to the possibility of alternative treatments.
It is good to note that perimenopause treatments are designed to remedy the signs and symptoms, not the actual perimenopause itself.
Remember: Knowledge is power. If you have sufficient knowledge of what you're going through, then you most definitely have the confidence and the power to control your life - perimenopausal or not.
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